I Obits
Sister Rose Thering:
Woman Of Valor
Rebecca Boronson
Jewish Standard
Teaneck, N.J.
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1096550
102 may 11 .
2006
ister Rose Thering died
Saturday, May 6, 2006, at
age 85.
A Dominican nun, she was a life-
long crusader against anti-Semitism
and stood, literally, in solidarity with
oppressed Jews in the Soviet Union.
Everything about her was unex-
pected. "Shalom, shalom," her
answering machine message began.
She was a small woman, wearing
sandals and jeans at a time when
many nuns had gratefully abandoned
their heavy black habits but still
favored conservative dress. And her
red hair was obviously dyed. She was -
wholly surprising and delightful.
Everywhere in her Essex County
apartment were artifacts from Israel
and scenes of Israel, which she vis-
ited, over her lifetime, more than 90
times, sometimes leading Jewish
or joint Christian-Jewish missions.
These were gifts from celebrated
admirers and just plain folks.
A tapestry of Jerusalem was on
her living room wall. Golda Meier
Awards for Sister Rose's activism
in Christian-Jewish relations were
everywhere.
Her work — trying to reverse cen-
turies of the Catholic Church's "con-
tempt teaching" (in French historian
Jules Isaac's phrase) against the Jews
— continued, even from her latter-
day sickbed.
Her contempt for contempt teach-
ing began early, she told me, "when
I found within my [religion] books
derogatory things about Jews and
Judaism." She grew up in a part of
Wisconsin where there were no Jews,
so she asked her teachers, "Who are
the Jews?" They gave her the same
answer as the books: "The Jews killed
Christ:'
She joined the Dominicans
because theirs was a teaching order.
She ultimately earned a doctorate
in education and history. Contempt
teaching, she told me, contributed to
such horrors as the Holocaust. Thus
the Holocaust, a focus of her doctoral
research, became a focus of her life.
A summary of her dissertation
was presented at the Second Vatican
Council. 171